[Filligree]

> That is if you believe biological general intelligence is the end goal of evolution, which I believe is highly unlikely.

I would agree, but might add that evolution doesn't have 'goals'.

Is that the point you were trying to make?

[didericis]

Not OP, but yeah, evolution doesn’t have goals in the same sense that people do, just like gravity doesn’t “want” to pull things, it just kind of “is”, and simply acts as reality permits based on prior and current conditions. That’s reasonable to say.

Convergent evolution exists for at least some adaptations though, like the eye. It’s not unreasonable to think that there may be some sort of equivalent convergence which creates a high general intelligence adaptation given enough time, at least for social creatures.

I think it’s pretty much impossible to know whether intelligence is a convergent adaptation without some kind of perfect simulation of evolution over billions of years. You’d have to tweak starting conditions and see if you kept getting smart creatures.

[Filligree]

Ah. So that’s why we exist. I was wondering.